Page 5 - F Stop December 2017

Why Do I Shoot RAW?
By Randy O’Hara
A lot of people ask, "Is it better to shoot RAW or JPG?" Some will defend their choice about why one is better than the other. Without getting into detail, I will show you why I shoot RAW.
In this photo, I wasn't prepared for the train engine to appear. I quickly took the shot before I could make sure the camera settings were correct, and the engine was gone as fast as it appeared.
Figure 1 is the original photo. It is way too blown out and most people would delete this right off the camera. But wait. I discovered that had a goal in mind for this photo so off to the computer I go to do some editing. Basically, when you take a photo in RAW, remember, it's a digital negative. And unlike JPG, which compresses and throws away data, the RAW retains all the data from the
exposure. Figure 2 is the recovered, processed photo.
However, I'm not done yet. Remember, I had a vision for this shot. With Nik software and my secret processing (a little humour there), Figure 3 is the final result.
There are many advantages shooting RAW. I thought I would show you one.